Human health risk assessments of organochlorine pesticides in some food crops from Esa-Oke farm settlement, Osun State, Nigeria

Seasonal levels of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in yam, cassava, sweet potato and cocoyam samples collected from Esa-Oke Farm Settlement, Osun State, Nigeria were evaluated. Sampling regiment for three sites lasted four months each during the dry and wet seasons. The dried samples were extracted using Soxhlet extractor with dichloromethane (DCM) as the extraction solvent, while the identification and estimation of OCPs in the crop filtrates, after clean-up, were carried out with Gas Chromatography equipped with Time-of-Flight Mass Spectroscopy Detector (GC-TOFMS). Ten OCPs determined in the crops had the overall seasonal mean levels that ranged from 158 ng/g (dieldrin) to 544 ng/g (heptachlor) and the seasonal mean burden per OCP occurred in the order: heptachlor epoxide (518) > heptachlor (447) > p,p’-DDE (431) > dieldrin (349) > chlordane (327) > aldrin (321) > p,p’-DDD (313) > methoxychlor (303) > endosulfan I (287) > p,p’-DDT (284) for wet season while this order was not the same for dry season of the same crop with heptachlor epoxide (415) > p,p’-DDE (373) > aldrin (305) > heptachlor (307) > methoxychlor (288) > chlordane (274) > p,p’-DDT (263) > p,p’-DDD (263) > endosulfan I (260) > dieldrin (246). For all of the OCPs, the estimated daily intake (EDI) and health risk indices (HRI) were significantly higher than the recommended values. Thus, a regular large-scale consumption of crop products from the farm settlement could result in grave public health concern in the course of time.